The two men standing over Michael
were both over six feet tall, if Michael were any judge. The one closest to him had dark hair and eyes. An old scar ran from the outer corner
of his left eye down to his chin.
Someone in the past had tried to take the man’s eye out with a knife,
and had nearly succeeded. This man was a
professional; Michael was familiar with his type from his time around some of
Gavin and Gabe’s less savory associates.
It meant he was dangerous, but far less terrifying than his companion.
The
first impression Michael had of the second man was simply “cold.” His hair was so pale, Michael couldn’t tell
if it was blond or white. His skin,
likewise, was so pale it could very well have been composed of pure snow. Scariest of all, however, were his eyes. Like the rest of him, they were so pale as to
be almost colorless, but it was the cold, almost inhuman look in them that
disturbed Michael the most. A tingle ran
up the arm holding the staff, and for the briefest moment he’d have sworn where
the pale man was standing he saw reptile of some
sort. As quickly as it came, the vision
was gone, and he was left facing the two men over the gun.
“So,
the runt actually managed to get the book,” the dark haired man remarked, a
definite Irish lilt in his voice. “The
boss was certain he’d be the one, but I had my doubts”
“You
should know by now not to doubt our employer,” his pale companion said simply,
his lifeless gaze never leaving Michael.
“Now, Mr. Drake, I suggest you hand over that volume. As impressive at it is that you were able to
actually obtain it, it certainly does not belong in such…young hands.”
Michael
knew from all of his self-defense training that he was better off just handing
the book over, but something inside him rebelled against the very idea. In the same way he had known how to extract
the book from the wall, he now knew that handing it over to these two men was a
very, very bad idea. Whoever had hidden
this book had gone to a lot of trouble to ensure its safety, and even more so,
it would seem, to get it into histo him. The fact that these
two men had known about the book, and yet hadn’t been able to acquire
on their own, suggested they were just the sort of
individuals the writer of the book was trying to protect it from. That said, Michael wasn’t sure how he was
going to get out of this situation. Yes,
he’d had extensive self-defense training, and yes he was completely at home
with a katana in his hands, but none of that had ever prepared him for using
those skills in real life. This was more
Gavin and Gabe’s area of expertise.
The
deafening crack of a gunshot made his ears ring while simultaneously pulling
him away from his own thoughts. He
absent-mindedly noted a sudden sting in his cheek where debris from the bullet that struck
the tree had grazed his face, but the majority of his attention was focused on
the gun now pointed directly at his head.
“We’re
not gonna ask you again,” the Irishman warned.
“Hand over that book, or the next time it will be your turn.”
Shaken,
and admittedly more scared than he could ever remember being, Michael’s grip on
the staff tightened until it was almost painful. He found he was incapable of
even speaking; , much less [JKB1] moving was definitely out of
the question. He wasn’t
sure he could move, much
less hand over the book he held so tightly to his chest. He couldn’t think of anything beyond wishing
he was someplace away from here, someplace safe. Unexpectedly, he found himself visualizing McGregor’s
antique shop. The old man’s store, for
some reason, just radiated a sense of safety and security that not even his own
home could match. Squeezing his eyes
closed, certain that at any moment a bullet was going to tear through fragile
flesh and bone, Michael mentally cast himself into the safety of the image in
his mind. An odd rippling sensation
seemed to enfold him, the way one’s hand feels when slowly dipped into a pool
of standing water, followed by a bone-rattling jolt.
For a
long moment, Michael just stood there, eyes shut tight, still waiting
for…something, anything
to happen. It took some time for his
focus to shift outward, and let him realize something had changed. He no longer felt a slight breeze on his
face, and the smell of dirt and grass had been replaced with the smell of
dust. Then he heard to the quiet
sound of clocks ticking, and his eyes flew
open in shock. He, somehow, by some
impossible miracle, was back in McGregor’s store. For a minute, Michael was certain he’d died,
and this was just some bizarre version of the afterlife brought on by his final
thoughts and memories. That supposition
was quashed, however, by McGregor himself appearing from the back room, only to
nearly drop the book in his hands as his eyes went wide at seeing Michael standing
right in front of him.
“Michael,
lad, where the devil did you come from,” he spluttered. “I thought you left town this morning.”
All of
a sudden, it all seemed to hit the younger man, and he began to shake. Michael could feel his heart pounding in his
chest, while a cold, clammy sweat had broken out all over his body. A buzzing in his ears, and tunneling of his
vision, warned him he had better sit, or he was going to black out. Fortunately, McGregor seemed aware of the
danger, and quickly got him seated with his head between his knees. Something lightweight but warm was thrown
over his shoulders, and a solid hand began to gently rub up and down his back.
“Easy,
lad, easy,” McGregor soothed. “Take all
the time you need. You’re safe enough
now. Whatever happened, we can deal with
it. Just breathe for a bit.”
It
seemed to take forever, but finally the shaking eased off, and the thought of
sitting up stopped making Michael feel like he might throw up. Sensing that the worst of the shock had worn
off, McGregor stepped back, though he kept close enough to step in should
Michael need his assistance again. Once
Michael was sitting upright and stable, McGregor swiftly fetched him a bottle
of water from the mini-fridge hidden under the main
desk. Not wanting to set off the nausea
again, Michael slowly sipped at the cold beverage as he just allowed himself to
soak in the sense of safety he associated with his current surroundings.
Finally,
he was back to himself enough to fully take stock of himself and his
surroundings. The chair he was sitting on was one of a set of four
Victorian-style chairs he’d noted during his earlier visit to the store; the
distinctive gold peacock feather pattern on a rich red background had, for some
reason, reminded him of Hunter. There
was something stiff, yet regal, about the set that just seemed so fitting for
his oldest brother. The warm weight
around his shoulders was McGregor’s own coat.
For some reason, the deep green of the pea coat, rather than the
traditional black or gray, just seemed to fit the old Scotsman, and somehow
served to make Michael feel all the better.
The thing that surprised Michael the most, however, was that the staff
was still gripped tightly in his hand, and the mystery book was pressed securely
to his chest; at his feet his bags were pushed neatly out of the way. Eyes wide with alarm and lingering shock,
Michael turned to look at the elderly Scotsman.
“I…I am
not sure what happened,” he said, his voice sounding startling young.
“Just
start from the beginning,” McGregor said, his voice firmly reassuring. “What happened after you left my shop?”
Slowly,
but with increasing confidence, Michael recounted the story, leaving nothing
out. He started with the dreams he’d had
off and on his whole life, leading up to the most recent one that set him on
his course to find the book. He told
about the walking staff that, of its own volition, changed shape; of the terse
conversation with Hunter; of catching the bus only to have it break down; of
the almost summons-like pull that led him to finding the book. And then he told of the two men who had
threatened him at gunpoint, and how he had wished to be back in the safety of
McGregor’s shop, only to magically, for lack of a better term, appear
there. When the tale was done, he waited
for McGregor to laugh at him or call him crazy, but the old man did neither.
“Lad, I
told you before, I’ve seen things I can’t explain,” he said. “Between my Scottish background and my time
in the antiques business, I’ve become something of a collector and teller orf
stories; some of the truest stories I know don’t make sense in the bright light
of logic and reason, but it doesn’t make them any less true. And while mankind has learned many, many
things about how the world works, I firmly believe we’ve barely scratched the
surface, and magic is just science’s more mysterious twin sister. Just because we don’t know how it works
doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
“Before
today, I’d have strongly disagreed, strongly,
with you,” Michael said.
“Now I don’t know what to think.”
“Well,
why don’t we put it aside for the moment,” McGregor said. “That’s a pretty nasty gash you’ve got on
your cheek there. Let’s get that cleaned
up, and for the time being focus on practical matters. We can come back to the magical and
metaphysical when the shock’s not quite so new.
Something to eat and something warm to drink will help the world make a
little more sense.”
Just as
McGregor had said, the world felt a little steadier once Michael had eaten, and
the warm cup of peppermint tea in his hand helped to chase the last of his
chills away. His cheek still stung a
bit, but given the splinters McGregor had been required to remove from the
wound that wasn’t much of a surprise.
The antibiotic anointment had helped some, but it couldn’t compensate
for the pull on the wound as Michael talked.
“The
dark-haired man, Irish if I read his accent right, was a professional,” Michael
told McGregor as they discussed the event in a bit
more detail. “I’ve met his type before;
quite a few of them have standing contracts with my brothers’ security
business. Whoever his employer was, this
guy respected his power and authority.
I’m also pretty sure he just flat out enjoyed his job. He made me nervous, but just because I knew
he would do what he said. The other guy,
though, he was the one who terrified me.
They weren’t partners; not really.
The pale guy was in charge, that much was clear, and I’d hazard a guess
that he was pretty far up the food chain.
But I’ve never met anyone so…inhuman.
For the briefest moment it’s like all the outer stuff that looks human
dropped away, and there was this, this lizard thing standing there, but only if
a lizard could be made of living marble.
It was vaguely human-shaped, but its head looked like an iguana with a
cockscomb-like frill running down the back.
I only got a quickly glimpse, but it definitely had talons instead of
hands. I didn’t see its tail, but I’m
absolutely certain it had one, along with a pair of wings. The only other strong impression I had was
that looking that thing in the eye, with its human mask off, would be a very
bad idea.”
“I
think you’re right, lad,” McGregor agreed.
“From your description I’d say you miraculously came face-to-face with
an ice basilisk and lived to tell the tale.”
Michael
couldn’t hold back his snort of disbelief.
“An ice basilisk? I think you’ve read one too many fairy tales and
legends.”
“Says
the bonny wee lad who owns a walking stick that changes its own shape and whose
dreams led him to find a book hidden in a wall,” McGregor countered. Michael found he couldn’t argue that. McGregor continued, “Speaking of said book,
have you taken a look at it since you pulled it out of that wall? Maybe we can figure out what’s so special
about this mysterious tome of yours that someone would be willing to kill you
to obtain
get it.”
With no
small measure of hesitation, Michael placed the book on the table. Since he’d arrived back in the store, he’d been
unable to make himself let go of either the book or the staff. Doing so now was taking no small amount of
willpower on his part. Fortunately,
McGregor seemed aware of his hesitation, and made no move to try and touch the
cloth bound tome. Laying the staff
across his lap to free up both hands, Michael very carefully unwrapped the
cloth covering from off the book. And
there, just as he remembered from his dream, was the
book. The exterior was crafted from
leather, now dark with age, though surprisingly showing no other signs of age
or wear. There were no markings on the
exterior of the book, but some sort of complicated silver lock sealed the book.
“Very
odd, indeed,” McGregor said. “It’s
obvious the book is of ancient origin, but the silver of that lock looks like
it had just come from the silversmith just yesterday, and there’s no cracking
of the leather like you’d expect for something hidden in a stone wall for
hundreds of years.”
“My
question is, how do we open it,” Michael said.
“Nowhere in my dream was there any hint of a key; just this bothersome
book.”
He ran
a finger over the swirling pattern of the silver lock. As he did, a soft click could be heard, and
in the blink of an eye a needle no thicker than a hair popped up and pricked
his finger. With a yelp, Michael jerked
his finger back and stared at the single drop of blood that appeared on the pad
of his finger. As if in a trance,
Michael watched as the blood welled enough for that single drop to roll off his
finger and land directly in the middle of the silver lock keeping the book
closed. The bright metal seemed to
absorb the drop, turning the entire silver clasp blood red, only to, a
heartbeat later, begin glow with the same silver-blue light the crystal atop
his staff had given off at the wall. The
glow built and built, until both men had to bring a hand up to block the
intense light before it blinded them.
Then, just as suddenly as it had occurred, the light disappeared, and the
lock on the book had disengaged. Before
Michael or McGregor could move, however, the book flipped open of its own
accord, and the same voice from the wall began to speak.
“Well
done, seeker; you have accomplished the first task, and taken the first step to
claim your birthright. Since you are
hearing this, let me also say well met, blood of my blood. Only one of my direct bloodline would be able
to hear this message, which means the time has come. Alas, I fear there is not much more I can
tell you; this journey is yours, and you will have to embark upon it with your
own skills and knowledge. If my
foresight is in any way accurate, I imagine you find this all a bit
overwhelming, so I have done what I can to ease your way. While this book contains the best of my
accumulated knowledge, it will do you no good if you haven’t the skill to use
it. That said, opening this book will
set in motion a series of tests that will help you unlock the abilities you
need within yourself. I regret that,
given the enormity of the task you will yet face, I haven’t the time to be
gentle, and you will face serious risk to overcome the tests placed before
you. All I can say is look within; the
power is in you to be what you must.
Good luck, seeker.”
The
voice faded away, and the two men looked at each other in stunned bewilderment,
until Michael jumped up from his seat and skittered away from the table.
“No,”
he said in a voice that was somewhere between a groan and growl. “This is not happening. I already got in enough trouble following
that stupid dream. I want no part of
this…this, whatever it is! I was quite
content with my life the way it was. Why
on earth would I willingly submit myself to this?”
“Michael,
I can’t begin to understand what you’re feeling right now,” McGregor said. “But I don’t think this is something you can
just wish away. Fate, destiny, divinity,
take your pick, but something beyond us has chosen you for this task. Your life story, it would seem, has just
taken one big plot twist.”
“But
this isn’t me,” Michael said in a soft voice.
“I’m not the brave one in the family. That’s Hunter, or Gavin, or Gabe; I’m the
computer geek that prefers his own company.”
“And
yet, here you are,” McGregor countered.
“I don’t think you see yourself in a clear light, lad. I can tell you what I see: a good hearted
young man with more strength than he gives himself credit for, who cares more
for others than he may be willing to admit.
And I think if you ask your brothers, they would say much the same.”
At
that, Michael suddenly cursed under his breath.
“What’s
the matter,” McGregor asked, concerned at the unusual show of verbal vulgarity.
“My
brothers,” Michael said, worried eyes turned on the older man. “I was supposed to meet Gavin and Gabe in
Edinburgh. They are going to freak out
because I didn’t show!”
